— A brawl erupting in the garage between the two teams whose drivers tangled on the track.

— The five-time champion and points leader blowing a tire and crashing, creating a big shakeup at the top of the Chase standings and paving the way for a new Sprint Cup champion.

— A driver winning his first race of the season—two days after news broke that he is leaving his team for another organization, a development that infuriated his team owner.

— A multicar crash on the final lap that collected, among others, the new points leader and female megastar Danica Patrick.

— Controversy over why NASCAR didn’t throw a caution flag when Patrick wrecked, leading to the chaotic final lap.

— And, in the aftermath, the new points leader and future champion delivering a profanity-laced tirade over the aggressive racing, and one of the drivers who got wrecked drawing the ire of NASCAR Nation and the general public by using a derogatory term to describe himself and the driver who wrecked him.

Those are the types of things you expect to see every year in NASCAR’s action-packed Sprint Cup Series.

Just not in one race.

And not in the next-to-last race of the season, with a championship on the line.

That it all happened in one three-hour event just might make Sunday’s show at Phoenix the greatest race in NASCAR history.

Quick, name the three NASCAR races considered the greatest of all-time.

They usually go like this:

— The 1979 Daytona 500, which featured Cale Yarborough and the Allison brothers climbing out of their wrecked cars and fighting in Turn 4 while Richard Petty took the checkered flag.

— The 1976 Daytona 500, when Petty and David Pearson crashed while racing to the checkered flag, with Pearson winning when he was able to refire his damaged car and creep across the finish line.

— The 1999 Goody’s 500 at Bristol, where Dale Earnhardt wrecked Terry Labonte on the final lap to win the race and draw the ire of even his own fans.

What did those three races have in common?

A shocking wreck.

Anger-inducing controversy.

Emotions so raw that it led to a fight, or at least the threat of a fight.

And a thrilling finish.

Sunday’s race at Phoenix had all of that and more.

It had all the high drama and controversy NASCAR fans want from a big race, plus the intensity and suspense of a heated championship battle. And wrapped around it were enough subplots to make a TV miniseries.

The championship battle

Brad Keselowski, the brash, outspoken 28-year-old trying to win his first championship, entered the race trailing five-time champion Jimmie Johnson by seven points with two races remaining in the Chase. He desperately needed to finish ahead of Johnson at Phoenix to have a chance in the season finale. He had just taken the lead in the final quarter of the race when Johnson’s tire blew and he crashed into the wall.

As Johnson wheeled his damaged car to the garage, the Chase suddenly took a dramatic turn, with Keselowski taking over the points lead and putting himself in position to win the championship next week at Homestead.

That alone would have made the race one of the biggest of the season, putting it on par with the dramatic championship battles of the past two seasons.

But, as it turned out, the drama was just beginning.

The retaliation

Jeff Gordon’s retaliation against Clint Bowyer ignited a brawl worthy of The Jerry Springer Show, with the two crews going at each other while one of Gordon’s crewmen snuck him away from the scrum and to the safety of his team hauler.

While NASCAR officials and security personnel tried to break up the melee, fans cheered as Bowyer climbed from his wrecked car and sprinted through the garage in pursuit of Gordon, a scene that resembled a police chase in Cops. He was intent on having his way with Gordon until a NASCAR official stopped him at the door to Gordon’s hauler.

After Gordon and Bowyer were escorted to the NASCAR hauler for a meeting with NASCAR brass, sheriff’s deputies were posted outside the door like prison guards.

You can’t make this stuff up.

The finish

As chaos reigned in the garage, NASCAR officials desperately tried to clear the track of debris and reorganize the field so the race could resume.

When it did, Kevin Harvick battled longtime nemesis Kyle Busch for the victory, a battle steeped in irony because of their deep-rooted hatred for each other and because of the controversy surrounding Harvick. Two days earlier, Harvick and team owner Richard Childress were caught off guard when news broke that Harvick already had struck a deal with Stewart-Haas Racing for 2014, seemingly bringing his long tenure at RCR to an end.

After struggling all season and unhappy with his team’s performance, Harvick suddenly found himself in contention to win for one of the few times this season.

He held off Busch for the victory, but not before chaos erupted again. When Patrick wrecked with one lap to go, her car was stalled on the track and the racing surface was covered with oil as the leaders raced back to the checkered flag.

But instead of throwing a caution flag, NASCAR allowed the leaders to race to the finish, which led to several drivers spinning and wrecking as the checkered flag flew.

Caught up in the melee was Keselowski, who finished sixth despite his car being damaged. Unlike Johnson, he barely averted disaster in a race that may have decided the championship.

Afterward, Harvick and others went off on NASCAR for not throwing a caution, while Keselowski was livid over the wild nature of the race.

Those developments and Bowyer’s offensive comment made NASCAR one of the hottest topics on Twitter and around the sports world.

The aftermath

But it was Gordon and Bowyer who stole the show, grabbing the spotlight from Keselowski and Harvick.

The brawl and chaotic scene in the garage attracted so much attention that, for a while, Johnson’s crash and the championship battle and the race itself became footnotes. Years from now, fans likely won’t even remember who won the race, or that Keselowski took the points lead when Johnson crashed.

But they will never forget Gordon wrecking Bowyer and the wild aftermath that followed.

While other races through the years have had as much drama and controversy, few have ever had so many developments and subplots in the same race.

It was similar to the 1992 season finale at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where Richard Petty made the final start of his career, a young Gordon made his first and five drivers battled for the championship, with Alan Kulwicki edging Bill Elliott by two points after Davey Allison was taken out in a crash.

Although that race is hard to match in terms of drama and significance, it lacked the controversy, raw emotion and absurdity that made Sunday’s race memorable.

There have been numerous memorable races over the years and countless thrilling finishes.

But for sheer drama, it’s hard to top Sunday’s Wild West showdown in the desert.